The federal government’s National Child Safety Review of policy options under the National Quality Framework is a step towards better child safety in early childhood education (ECE).
Effective information sharing can help prevent individuals known to pose a risk from gaining access to children in early education settings. However, clear safeguards must be in place to ensure that any sharing of staff information is limited to appropriate parties and used solely for child protection and legitimate purposes.
Read full details here: IEU Speaks on National Child Safety Review
Our union’s broader guiding principles must also underpin any reforms to ensure the interdependent goals of child safety and staff wellbeing. These include: stronger legal obligations on employers to uphold child safety; adequate resourcing and working conditions; consistent use of workload assessment tools tailored to ECE; updated policies and strategies to deal with evolving tech-facilitated abuse; and genuine employee consultation through participatory planning and decision making.